Grenfell inquiry: Residents ‘treated as sub-citizens’ when they tried to raise safety concerns

Grenfell Tower
PA Wire

Grenfell Tower residents were treated as “sub citizens” when they tried to raise safety concerns before the fatal fire, the inquiry heard today.

Lee Chapman complained repeatedly about the state of the building and shoddy refurbishment work, including “huge concern” about gas pipes left exposed in communal areas.

But he said the Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) forKensington and Chelsea Council ignored the problems.

“I feel that the way that these concerns were handled is a good reflection of the culture within the TMO and the attitude that it had towards Grenfell Tower residents at the time”, Mr Chapman, the secretary of the leaseholders association, said in his evidence to the inquiry this morning.

“Ultimately we were people who wanted to feel safe in our homes, and this should not have been perceived by the TMO as something which was annoying or bothersome.

“I also believe that as residents in a so-called ‘social housing block’, we were treated as sub citizens or sub class.”

Mr Chapman’s wife Naomi Li escaped from their 22nd floor home when fire ripped through the block on June 14. He is the first of a series of former residents to give evidence to the latest phase of the inquiry.

Mr Chapman wrote to councillors and his local MP in the months before the blaze as part of efforts to improve their living conditions, highlighting anti-social behaviour, broken lifts, and the issue with exposed gas pipes.

He had also complained about defective refurbishment work on their home which left them with holes around newly installed windows.

Lee Chapman gave evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry
Grenfell Inquiry

Writing to the TMO and council about the gas pipes, Mr Chapman said: “Please can I insist that you MUST take this issue seriously as should an event happen it is our lives at risk”.

In early March 2017, Mr Chapman wrote about a lack of emergency access for disabled residents: “I cannot imagine the possible consequences of a fire in this building and as a duty of care the RBKC must ensure that we can get out in an emergency, if there is a need to evacuate.

“To be clear, if we cannot get out people will die or at best suffer serious injury.

“There are many people in this building who are immobile, very young or suffer from mental health issues, I would ask for your undivided help in getting this matter resolved for all interested parties.”

Mr Chapman said he received a “totally uninformative and generic” reply from the TMO, and told the inquiry: “Throughout the process of highlighting these concerns to the TMO and RBKC, nothing gave me confidence that they had understood how concerned we were, or that they were seeking to resolve the issues we were writing to them about.

“At no point were we reassured that our safety was not at risk.”

Mr Chapman was away on business in Malaysia at the time of the fire, while his wife was at home with her cousin Lydia.

The two women eventually managed to escape from the 22nd floor flat, deciding to flee a matter of minutes before flames engulfed the home. They managed to grope their way down the stairwell past the bodies of people who had been overcome by heat and smoke before they were met by firefighters on lower levels.

Previously in the inquiry Mr Chapman gave evidence of the frantic phone calls to his wife on the night of the fire.

She had initially followed the ‘stay put’ advice for the building, but decided to flee their home at around 3am when it became clear the blaze was not under control.

“She said she had called 999 and they said get out”, said Mr Chapman. “Naomi said she was going to try but she wasn’t sure if she would make it.

“I told her to get out, don’t try to stay. In my mind, I was quite clear in my head she wouldn’t get out alive.

“I was watching it on BBC news in Malaysia and I remember thinking ‘do I tell her to jump out of the window so she doesn’t have to suffer, would that be better than dying of smoke inhalation’.”

She had told him during the escape: “We are going down, but I don’t know if we will make it or not. I love you.”

The inquiry continues.

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